The major­i­ty of mem­bers don’t know where the Book of Abra­ham (found in the Pearl of Great Price) comes from. Here is a brief his­to­ry from Wikipedia: Sev­er­al papyri and eleven mum­mies were dis­cov­ered in Thebes by Anto­nio Lebo­lo between 1818 and 1822. Some­time between 1822 and his death on Feb­ru­ary 19, 1830, Lebo­lo arranged…

This is Fac­sim­i­le 1, locat­ed at the front of the Book of Abra­ham in the Pearl of Great Price. Joseph Smith described this scene as “The idol­a­trous priest of Elke­nah attempt­ing to offer up Abra­ham as a sac­ri­fice,” mean­ing, the man with the knife is a priest of Elke­nah and the man on the altar…

Fac­sim­i­le 2 is actu­al­ly a rep­re­sen­ta­tion of a “hypocephalus”. Egyp­tians would put these under the head of mum­mies, like a pil­low. Here are lots of real hypocephali as they are in abun­dance: You’ll notice that I’ve cir­cled cer­tain sec­tions. Go back and study what’s inside the red cir­cle first. Four ram heads, right? Now go…

Fac­sim­i­le 3 is described by Joseph Smith as “Abra­ham sit­ting upon Pharaoh’s throne, by the polite­ness of the king, with a crown upon his head, rep­re­sent­ing the Priest­hood, as emblem­at­i­cal of the grand Pres­i­den­cy in Heav­en; with the scepter of jus­tice and judg­ment in his hand.” Once again, this is not about Abra­ham at all,…

I had pre­vi­ous­ly been able to con­vince myself that the rea­son we don’t have the gold plates is because Joseph Smith, Jr would have been hunt­ed to an even ear­li­er death if he had kept them. Still, I, and I think every mem­ber, has a secret wish that the Lord would decide it was time…

I’ve focused most­ly on the Book of Mor­mon, since I accept that it is the key­stone of the reli­gion, just as Joseph Smith, Jr stat­ed. The Book of Abra­ham and his oth­er trans­la­tions are close behind. Some of the oth­er top­ics that have affect­ed my tes­ti­mo­ny: Polyg­a­mous mar­riages of Joseph Smith, use of coer­cion, sev­er­al…